Kansas City Chiefs: Anthony Sherman should be a bigger weapon in 2019

The Kansas City Chiefs have some big name weapons at Patrick Mahomes’ disposal and Anthony Sherman could use a bigger role in 2019.

The 2018 season was an offensive explosion with first-year starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his long list of talented weapons. While most Kansas City Chiefs fans had high expectations for Mahomes in his first year as the starting quarterback, no one saw this kind of season coming. Leading the way by a longshot in touchdowns, Mahomes was also second in passing yards only sitting behind Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

Mahomes won the Most Valuable Player award in 2018 while putting up record numbers including becoming only the second quarterback to put up 5,000 passing yards and 50 touchdowns in the same season. Of course, these kinds of records wouldn’t have been possible without the high caliber weapons at his disposal.

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Kansas City had arguably the best group of weapons to surround Mahomes with wide receivers Tyreek Hill and newly added Sammy Watkins, tight end Travis Kelce, and for half of the season running back Kareem Hunt. After the Chiefs elected to cut Hunt following the altercation video from the offseason, the offense took a major hit. It took some time for the offense to regain their firepower without Hunt and with the injury of Sammy Watkins, but it kept putting up big numbers throughout the second half of the season regardless.

Damien Williams took over following the cut of Hunt and injury to Spencer Ware. While he’s not the same style of running back as the original top two backs, he made a big name for himself towards the end of the season. One could argue that he could have received more opportunities running the ball, but that’s an argument for another day.

Players like Chris Conley and Demarcus Robinson failed to step up in a major way during the stretch without Sammy Watkins which allowed defenses to key in on Hill and Kelce. When Watkins returned to the lineup, the Chiefs looked just as explosive as they did in the early part of the regular season. The question for this offseason will be whether or not the Chiefs can find another key weapon for Patrick Mahomes to utilize in the 2019 season.

Without digging into who the Chiefs should grab in either free agency or the draft, I wanted to look at a player already on the roster. Fullback Anthony Sherman has slowly seen his playing time dwindle with the NFL moving to a pass-heavy league in the last few seasons. While I still believe that the team needs to run the ball more during some games, I think that Sherman brings more to the table than what the tradition of the position implies.

While Sherman is not the most athletic player on the team, he knows how to make plays. Given the creativity of Andy Reid‘s playbook in 2018 with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, Sherman got to see a little more action in the passing game. Everyone remembers the first game of the season against the Los Angeles Chargers when Mahomes threw a dime to Sherman on a route he was lined up as a tight end.

Even though Sherman is not the most explosive player off the line of scrimmage, he finds ways to get open. Given the defense is normally expecting a run play when he’s on the field, Sherman brings an ability to control the defensive personnel on the field. Start him in the backfield with another running back and if the defense is showing a base package, split Sherman and your running back out wide or into a tight end position to take advantage of the matchup.

The idea came to me after watching the New England Patriots control the Chiefs personnel in the AFC Championship with their players on the field. They used strong packages that allowed them to run down Kansas City’s throat if lined up in the nickel and short passing routes when the defense was in base packages. With this concept, the Chiefs had no answer to stop the Patriots.

Much like the Patriots did throughout the playoffs, head coach Andy Reid could absolutely draw up some more creative looks with Sherman on the field. Never knowing what the offense is going to do based off of their personnel gives you a strong advantage. Considering we saw Sherman make some tough catches this last season in these creative roles, I would love to see it be taken to the next level and more frequently. Give the defense too many things to think about.

Here is an example of the Chiefs coming out with a three tight end look having Sherman between Travis Kelce and Demetrius Harris in what looks to be a running play against Jacksonville.

Another great reason to have two running backs starting out in the backfield is the ability for Mahomes to adjust for heavy blitz packages. We see Mahomes motion both backs up to the line recognizing the blitz and Mahomes hits Sherman for the first down in the flat.

Plays like the one above more often would have been perfect in games where Mahomes was taking consistent pressure from blitz packages. Some games to mention for reference would be against New England, Denver, and Baltimore.

Need a quick first down on a third and short? Why not throw your fullback into the slot on a quick slant route over the middle?

Not only was Sherman able to make some highlight wheel plays in his few moments during the 2018 season, but he also provided extra pass protection for Mahomes when the offensive line was consistently taking injuries. Having Sherman to chip an edge rusher on his way to the flat is a great way to take care of both Mahomes and make the play for a few yards.

There is the question of whether or not the Chiefs will keep Sherman after signing Aaron Ripkowski to a reserve/futures contract recently. Sherman is set to be a restricted free agent this offseason and would be the more expensive contract over Ripkowski’s veteran minimum, but I personally would hold onto Sherman. He is a better blocker and knows the offense already along with his special teams contributions.

Regardless, I would like to see Andy Reid come up with more creative ways to utilize his fullback and much like the Patriots did throughout the postseason, control the defensive personnel and give them another player to account for in the passing game. Forcing defenses to take every weapon seriously opens things up for players like Hill and Kelce as well.